Match Review

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Overs 19th and 20th of the first innings surely changed the game over in a jiffy, miraculously changing CSK’s fortune like a gold mine. The duo of Ambati Rayudu-Kedar Jadhav scored 42 runs in the final two overs as the Caribbean side’s Mohammad Hasnain and Ali Khan gave away the entire game on a plate to the Men in Yellow over the span of twelve deliveries. 

Highs and Lows

Lendl Simmons’ partnership with Sunil Narine definitely needs to get off to a better start next time around if Pollard’s men are chasing in an encounter. Out of all games that they could have gone cold, they decided to do it against one of India’s most dominant side in the form of CSK. Deepak Chahar’s initial swing was enough to disturb the right-handed Simmons before Thakur accounted for the southpaw Narine. If your opening part is just contributing five runs between them in massive run-chase, the game surely could only get worse. 

Rating Charts

Over-the-top, flashy and dominance from the CSK openers was enough to give them a huge head-start in the encounter against one of the tough sides from the CPL. In just the first over, the International pairing of Watson-du Plessis put on a show, scoring 12 runs before maximising the most of the restrictions. While the scoring rate tended to be on the up in the next two years, the side from India surely put the contest to the bed, with their start, scoring 64 runs in six overs with the loss of just one wicket. 

Contrasting start to the innings, Trinbago suffered the most in the powerplay, losing two of their most-valued players - Sunil Narine and Lendl Simmons. The experienced Simmons walked away right in the first over, to be more precise, in the fourth delivery of the innings. On top of that, the southpaw too suffered a similar fate in the next over as the home side were reduced to a score of 14/2. However, they did make a late comeback in the powerplay, amassing 39 runs in the 36 deliveries that they faced. 

This time, Pollard’s men stopped CSK from performing their black-magic during the middle overs of the innings. Not only did the home side showcase their best performance, restricting the Yellow side to 67/2 but also ensured that they did not get any sort of momentum towards the back end of the innings. Right when the Indian side were rebuilding, they were struck again with the task after Raina and Dhoni walked back for a quick shower. All that the side from Chennai could manage was 54 runs in the encounter. 

Trinbago’s middle-overs manoeuvring, on the other hand, threatened to take the game away from the visiting side. However, it all started, with two quick wickets for the Chennai side. After that, Trinbago put on a show, scoring 34 runs in the next five as they tried to gain the upper hand over the visitors towards the latter part of the innings. 

TKT’s bowling performance in the death resembled the word ‘death’ itself, with the visitors absolutely smashing the heavens out of the bowlers. No one was spared this time around, not even Ali Khan, who previously turned out to be a match-winner in the competition. The duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Rayudu turned the game in the yellow side’s favour purely on the basis of their blitzkrieg. In the 5 over period leading to the end of the innings, they scored 74 runs, which eventually was the difference. 

Despite the slow start in the death overs, Chennai were sure up until that point that the score was already out of the reach of the home batsmen after their slow start. All that MS Dhoni’s bowlers had to do was just put more pressure on them, which naturally would lead to the batsmen trying something funky. In the end, it was exactly that, as they scored 48 runs, losing three of their key batsmen 

Barring the brilliance from both Rayudu and Colin Munro, the game had absolutely nothing for the batsmen, who continued to struggle. In the bowling department, it was Imran Tahir and Shardul Thakur who were standout, picking up three wickets each for the IPL franchise.